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Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan says treatment is making her so dehydrated that she gets Farmer Face. “The people at work were always getting after me for talking over the cubicles. I got a lot of notoriety for talking and making noise. ‘I promise I’ll change!'” Her forced quietude gives way to smiles like this after tea or water.

While mom’s days have been pretty full lately, there has not been a lot of news to post. She has a daily routine of leaving the nursing home and heading over to the UW for radiation treatments to shrink the tumor in her pelvis and hip. I am not sure that we have seen a real benefit to this yet but the goal is to reduce the size of the tumor and thus the pain that it causes mom.

She also officially began her first 28 day cycle of Revlimid yesterday. This is mom’s first chemo treatment for the cancer since November and we are starting cautiously to see how mom responds to the drug.

She has been in very good spirits overall, although the daily routine is pretty taxing and tires her out. She has had a few visitors lately and is always excited to see anybody that is in the Seattle area.

Mom’s youngest sister is back in Seattle and she has been a godsend. Claudia arrived in Seattle on Monday and is settling into a routine of shuttling mom to appointments and keeping her company at the nursing home.

Mom has also begun some initial treatment for the tumors. She is having targeted radiation every day for seven weeks to shrink the tumors in her pelvis. The goal of this radiation is to reduce the pain so that mom will be able to increase her mobility.

She will also begin a 28 day chemo cycle on Friday. This will be a relatively less toxic drug than mom took the first time around and again the goal here is to reduce the tumor growth enough that mom can make some progress with her physical therapy.

Still a very long way to go and we need a little bit of luck to go our way, but we are beginning again to make progress and are very grateful for that.

This is just a quick post to let you know that mom has been transferred back to the Terraces at Skyline. She really likes this place, the PT is excellent and it is much more social than being in the hospital.

We have all been pretty busy lately, Joe was here this weekend while my family took a little 2 day holiday to Great Wold Lodge. Also in town were several members of our extended Vietnamese family. My parents (along with 2 other couples from their parish) sponsored an entire family from Vietnam when they moved to Spokane. They very quickly became part of our lives and part of our family. Although time and distance has put space between us, we quickly come together again like old friends.

This is another one of the blessings that we are given in trying times, we are thankful for all of your prayers and thoughts.

We all ask that question from time to time and many of you would like to know why mom is back in the hospital and this time why UWMC. As you might recall mom was held at Virginia Mason for several weeks after coming off the ventilator because of some persistent fevers. The story is pretty long but the bottom line is that after a week or so out of the hospital these fevers returned and we all thought it best to have mom under the direct supervision of a doctor. We moved to UWMC because mom’s oncologist could not see her at VM. Having mom at UWMC means that she is getting the absolute best possible care from a world class teaching institution and that her care is being managed directly by her oncologist.

If mom’s treatments go well, this will not likely be her last hospital admission. The chemo regiment and bone marrow transplant procedure that is currently planned for mom comes with a tremendous amount of toxic side effects and a large part of that treatment will most likely be handled while mom is admitted to the hospital.

Mom can always have visitors and she loves to see her friends. We will try to keep people posted on here as much as possible about where she is and how to reach her. If you have mom’s mobile number, she is taking telephone calls – she has her phone with her.

If you are planning a visit and need a place to stay or want to get more timely information about exactly where she is or the best time to visit, email me at matthew@yungfrank.com and I’ll help as much as I can.

Well, Delphine called me this afternoon to find out how Jan could blog from her own account and to say she is back in the ER. Bummer.

I took Aleta to visit Jan yesterday and we got to eavesdrop on a doctor visit, play in her room a little, and join her for lunch. Jan insisted on having clam chowder brought for me as well, and a Sprite for Aleta.

While we were sitting there, Jan got a surprise visit from a dear old friend and neighbor, Fi. This is Fi’s daughter Anna because Fi (Jan, you can correct my spelling) is too camera shy.

(You can see her hands behind Anna.)

Over Delphine’s phone call to me, Jan related that she had another visitor yesterday and made a comment about lunch service that demonstrated to me that, as of 2pm today, Jan was her normal spirited self. 😉

I’ve been moved to the University of Washington ED. We came in the back door. Hopefully will start chemo really soon and I’ll be able to use my nursing home to still get my PT and OT. At four, we may hear what hospital room I’m in, but this very minute you can find me in room six in the ER. My legs are developing muscles like you wouldn’t believe but my head is developing fevers that you wouldn’t want and my vomit is projecting across the room. Del, Matt and Stephanie have spent the day in the ER with me and then Matt left to go play hockey with his son. Hope to hear from you all when you have a chance.
Jan

Mom has started to get into a nice routine at her new home. She has physical therapy and occupational therapy each once a day. They have regular meal times in a nice little dining room with a view. My dad is here today and we went to visit with mom for a little bit before lunch. Mom introduced us to a new friend that she had met and a phrase that they coined – “we have the fun that we find”. Yet another new perspective and proof to me of something that I have long believed, we don’t find happiness in life – we choose it.

My mother is an amazing woman, and I love her very much. Thanks for the inspiration mom and proving to me that no matter how dire your personal situation seems to be that ‘happiness’ is always a choice that you can make.